[Although the provinces are not yet so greatly disaffected as is Manila], their moral condition is very different from that when they generally pronounced against the English in 1762 and gave the victory to Anda. Mejico belonged to España, and its treasury contributed to the support of the islands, which had the exclusive benefit of a traffic which the public especially valued, and whose conservation was inseparable from union to the mother-country. North-American independence and the French revolution had not yet come to fix the future destiny of all the colonial possessions of the world. [39] The regular clergy, the principal base of our domination, then exercised an influence over the inhabitants, which time has almost entirely vitiated. Little care is taken for the instruction of their members, from which it results that some of them with their gross manners, stupid pretensions, and exactions from the chiefs of the provinces, and the gobernadorcillos and notables of the villages, occasion anger, quarrels, and discord which disturb the quiet of the inhabitants, distract and embarrass the authorities, and nourish those indiscreet and tenacious struggles in which all lose, and which have contributed so greatly to the rapid undermining of the base of our power in the provinces. The mistrust of a sad future leads many of them to engage in commercial business, and conduces to avarice and to a worldly life, so that they have lost their religious prestige, without gaining the respect and the consideration due to eminent and beneficent citizens. Without doubt there are respectable men among the individuals of the regular clergy, who, superior to circumstances, devote themselves entirely to the fulfilment of the duties of their sacred ministry; who as true fathers of their parishioners, look carefully after their comfort and welfare; and who, for that reason possessing their esteem, are, consequently, one of the chief supports of the action of the government in the villages. It is with reference to these that I have remarked in another place that both religion and policy recommend them. Let all be placed in the same category, and let strict watch be put on the instruction and conduct of the parish priests, in which, truly, there is much to correct; and the happiness of the provinces will be secure, if, in addition, the improvements demanded by the state of civilization and of wealth in some of the provinces, and by the genius and circumstances of the various races inhabiting them, and the differences of the times in which we are living, are made in their government and administration. For that purpose it must be kept in mind that ambition is wont to affect the Spanish people transplanted to these distant and hot climes; that arrogant presumption is the distinctive characteristic of their descendants; and we must consider duly the characteristic qualities of the natives.